Students at The George Washington University wax eloquent on all things North Korean

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Media's Role in Informing US of DPRK

I came across an intersting article at another opinion site regarding how the American media handeled the 'mushroom cloud' incident in North Korea. Perhaps the author touches on reasons why 99% of Americans don't know nearly anything about North Korea.

It's ironic that after all the mumbo-jumbo predictions of catastrophe that have been floating around since 9/11, the one time the government couldn't have been handed a more perfect compliance package is ignored.

Completely and utterly ignored.

Granted, yesterday North Korean officials tied the explosion to a controlled demolition of a hydroelectric project. But so what? The press has never been gun-shy about running with unfounded accusations (Iraq having WMDs being one of those pesky year-long snafus), and this is one that has plausible deniability written all over it. The lack of comment from the North Korean government for four days only heightened the mystery and intrigue that newscasts love to lead with.

That the United States casually brushed aside early reports of the nuclear test only underscores how much of a ruse the "war on terror" really is. (Well, that, and Bush admitting the war on terror can't be won. Boffo.)

After all, if American intelligence points to North Korea's legitimacy as a nuclear power, why all the condemnation of Iran's program, which is further behind in development and is committed to building civilian power plants, not weapons?

Iran is hounded daily in the press as a threat to world peace. Congressmen and senators seek to impose sanctions against the need to provide power to the people of Iran. All of this without any verifiable weapons program in operation. On the other hand, North Korea has threatened to nuke the U.S. if it's attacked. And for four days in September, that threat was very real.

2 comments:

"Completely and utterly ignored"? Mr. Hutaff needs to learn how to use GoogleI would generally interpret the American media's reaction to the blast more as one of cautious fact-gathering before making unsubstantiated statements. And this is supposed to be a bad thing?

Maybe I should've been more clear, but the thing I was also trying to get at is what little attention is paid by people such as himself, and the desire of some to have immediate kind of "end of the world" news stories.